Specialized Debuts New Women’s Mountain Bike

At only 25.3 pounds (claimed), the Safire Pro is easily hoisted when faced with hike-a-bike sections—or rushing streams. (Sterling Lorence)

The Specialized Safire is a trail bike, “for people who want to climb everything they descend,” says women’s product manager Rachel Lambert. Although it officially debuted in 2008, the bike has been reinvented for 2011—for the first time, the geometry and suspension have been designed in tandem, completely independent of the men’s models.

One thing that hasn’t changed: The Safire is still a blast to ride (Sterling Lorence).

In revamping the Safire, Specialized had two big goals. One was to lower the front end, as some riders had requested a more aggressive position. The solution: an integrated headset, which has a lower stack height.

Secondly, the bike’s designers wanted the Safire to use an inline suspension—aligning the seatstays, shock and top tube—which Specialized claims improves rear wheel tracking and small-bump sensitivity. In order to accomplish this without sacrificing standover height, they created a new curved, three-piece top tube. The resulting frame looks sort of like the love child of a beach cruiser and a traditional diamond-frame mountain bike, with swoopy tubes that are sure to turn heads on the trail.

All-new, all-mountain: The Safire Pro can tackle almost any trail—and is designed specifically for female riders (courtesy).

With the help of data from the Boulder Center Sports Medicine as well as its own Body Geometry Fit Lab, Specialized designed the Safire’s frame and suspension to accommodate a 150-pound mountain biker. Most suspension, Lambert says, is optimized for a 180-pound rider, which means that women who weigh less often don’t benefit from all of their bike’s travel. To help women utilize all 120mm of the Safire’s rear travel, Specialized added a shim to reduce the diameter of the air can on the Brain shock. The Future Shock S140TA fork can be set to either 115mm or 140mm travel. Another component change: A SRAM 2x10 drivetrain (36/24 chainrings) with bash guard replaces the triple crankset, for lighter weight and reduced log clearance.

The new Safire is available in two models, the $4,400 Pro and the $2,500 Comp, which weighs about a pound more, with a Fox Triad II shock and RockShox Reba RLT fork. Both have aluminum frames. When asked about the decision to drop carbon from the lineup and go from four models to two for 2011, Lambert said that while the old Safire was based on the Stumpjumper, the new bike is not based on a men’s frame, which necessitated a more intensive engineering process and higher tooling costs because designers. Specialized was mum on its plans for 2012, but we wouldn’t be shocked to see a carbon Safire appear next year.

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